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The visual identity has switched from blue to green, but the actual changes it is making are deeper and far more reaching than just colour changes!

The new web site refers largely to the "BCS" rather than the "British Computer Society" and has added a strap-line to its logo: "The Chartered Institute for IT", which seems to underscore its intention to play a larger role in IT internationally and to promote chartered status amongst IT professionals world-wide.

The BCS certainly seems determined to take up the mantle that naturally belongs to it and to start leading the IT profession in the United Kingdom and further afield.

In particular, it has revised how it will award Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status. It has added two extra stages to the assessment process, including an exam and a mandatory interview and presentation, which will apparently be largely conducted online.

An interesting development is the new Certificate of Current Competence, which will be renewable every five years. This seems to resemble the practice certificates used in some other professions, which are designed to show that the practitioner concerned is considered to be currently capable to practice. Information about this aspect of the changes being brought in are scant at this stage, but it seems this will be available to Chartered IT Professionals to prove that they are up-to-date.

The BCS has often been seen primarily as a learned body and perhaps has drawn criticism in the past for not representing "the industry". The BCS seems intent in redressing the balance, while not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Another change is the establishment of the BCS Academy of Computing, which looks set to become the focus of its learned activities.